Trade-off between urgency and reduced editorial capacity affect publication speed in ecological and medical journals during 2020 - Nature
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ARTICLE
https://doi.org/10.1057/s41599-021-00920-9 OPEN
Trade-off between urgency and reduced editorial
capacity affect publication speed in ecological and
medical journals during 2020
Lucas Rodriguez Forti 1 ✉, Luiz A. Solino2,3 & Judit K. Szabo1,4
1234567890():,;
While the speed of publication in academic journals has decreased over time, delays in the
review process can still cause frustration and damage the authors’ career. During the COVID-
19 lockdown, scientists struggled to manage tasks and academic journals announced possible
publication delays due to reduced editorial capacity. In this context, COVID-19 research has
been somewhat paradoxical, due to societal and editorial pressures for fast publication. We
hypothesised that given the urgency of disseminating pandemic-related information, articles
on the topic would be published as a priority in 2020. We analysed the submission-to-
publication time lag for 5790 articles published between January 1, 2018 and December 31,
2020 in eight ecology and eight medical journals. We also analysed patterns in the gender of
first and last authors. All 16 journals were international, with relatively high impact factor
(between 2.34 and 36.13) and partially or fully open access. Even though articles in general
took longer to get published, the speed of publication increased in 2020, as the faster review
of 419 COVID-19 articles compensated for the longer submission-to-publication time lag of
non-COVID-19 publications. Manuscripts in journals with a higher impact factor and only
partial open access took longer to get published during the last three years. In 2020, the ratio
of articles with male and female first and last authors remained similar to that in 2019,
maintaining the gender bias in scientific productivity. Female scientists, especially when they
are providing maternity and other primary care, need more support for their careers, such as
relief from teaching duties and adjustments on assessment criteria to access research
funding. We advocate that topics besides COVID-19, particularly those that could help to
solve other urgent crises, should also benefit from faster publication.
1 Instituto de Biologia, Universidade Federal da Bahia, Rua Barão de Jeremoabo, 668 - Campus de Ondina, Salvador, Bahia 40170-115, Brazil. 2 Secretaria de
Estado de Educação de Mato Grosso, Rua Engenheiro Edgar Prado Arze, Quadra 01, Lote 05, Setor A - Centro Político Administrativo, Cuiabá, MT 78049-
906, Brazil. 3 Fundação Ecotrópica, Rua 03, 391, Boa Esperança, Cuiabá, MT 78068-375, Brazil. 4 College of Engineering, IT and Environment, Charles Darwin
University, Casuarina, NT 0909, Australia. ✉email: lucas_forti@yahoo.com.br
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ARTICLE HUMANITIES AND SOCIAL SCIENCES COMMUNICATIONS | https://doi.org/10.1057/s41599-021-00920-9
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Background submitting research they have conducted previously. The situa-
ublication delays frustrate scientists who wait for months or tion has also inspired an unprecedented number of scientific
even years until they see their manuscripts published publications that focused on different aspects of the pandemic
(Nguyen et al., 2015). Repeated delays can trigger anxiety itself, including actual and potential impacts (close to 100,000
and depression in authors, make them withdraw the publication with the topic “COVID-19” according to the Scopus database on
or turn to predatory journals that can deliver at shorter time February 09, 2021). Nevertheless, in 2020, many authors received
frames (Kurt, 2018). Unfortunately, the academic community is the automated reply from journals upon submission: “We are
ruled by the “publish or perish” pressure, and with manuscripts experiencing a higher volume of manuscript being submitted
trapped in the journals’ review systems, these delays can affect the while operating under reduced editorial capacity due to restric-
career of scientists by costing them promotions, grants and col- tions in place as a result of COVID-19, therefore it may take
laborations (Nguyen et al., 2015). slightly longer to move papers through the system”. Thus, while
Publishing delays not only affect the academic career of the eager to fulfil society’s thirst for new information with regard to
authors, but also halt and impair decision-making, and delay the pandemic, we are facing new obstacles that can increase
finding solutions to important problems in different societal manuscript processing time by editors and reviewers for articles
spheres (Björk and Solomon, 2013). For instance, in the case of a not strictly relevant to COVID-19.
novel disease, the sooner an effective treatment or prevention While based on anecdotal data and the personal experience of
method reaches the medical community, the more lives can be the authors it seemed like processing times (submission-to-pub-
saved. For this reason, the cost of legitimate time restraints or lication time lags) for the submitted manuscripts have increased
procrastination by actors (authors, editors and reviewers) considerably, we wanted to test this formally. Our central ques-
involved in the revision process is often too high to pay and many tion was whether the pandemic has changed submission-to-
authors choose preprint platforms to get their work disseminated publication times in 2020 compared to the previous two years.
earlier or to get reviewed by a larger community of readers We also wanted to test if these changes in time lags were similar
(Kaiser, 2017; Johansson et al., 2018; Mercier et al., 2020). for studies explicitly mentioning COVID-19 in the title or the
While temporal trends in the submission-to-publication time abstract compared to other topics in both medical and ecological
lag vary depending on the scientific area (Björk and Solomon, publications. We hypothesised that in 2020 the time between
2013; Huisman and Smits, 2017), academic publication has submission and publication of an article would be longer com-
generally became slower in the past few decades (Ellison, 2002; pared to the two previous years. However, we predicted that this
Alberts et al., 2008; Tort et al., 2012), possibly as a result of more pattern would not hold for publications about COVID-19, which
rounds of reviews (Ellison, 2002). On the other hand, the emer- were under societal (and editorial) pressure for faster progress.
gence of online publication, where journals often do not designate Considering that the lockdown did not affect all scientists
individual articles into volumes and issues, has somewhat sped up equally, we also addressed some complementary questions: Did
submission-to-publication times (Tort et al., 2012). the discipline of the journal (ecology or medicine), the number of
Different journals have different editorial capacities, quantity, authors and the number of pages of the article affect the
types and length of articles published, policy and deadlines for peer- submission-to-revision time lag in the 16 journals we evaluated?
review, but their impact factor still seems to lead to faster publication Has the pandemic affected the proportion of articles with male
(Huisman and Smits, 2017; Tort et al., 2012). Within journals, delays and female first and last authors in ecology and medical journals?
may be due to the quality of manuscripts, the time editors spend to And finally, was the impact factor of journals correlated to the
find available reviewers, the time reviewers take to return the review average submission-to-publication time lag? The responses to
(Lotriet, 2012), and the time the authors need to resubmit their these questions can help us gain an insight into the complex
revised manuscript (Björk and Solomon, 2013). Delays can also effects of the pandemic on academic publishing during the first
emerge in the production stage, i.e., the time taken to publish an year when large changes in social structure occurred.
article after it has gone through the peer-review process and has
been accepted (Yu et al., 2005; Luwel et al., 2020).
Nevertheless, since early 2020, the submission-to-publication time Methods
lag has been affected by a new factor, the COVID-19 pandemic Data collection. We selected 16 high-impact journals, eight from
(Horbach, 2020). The COVID-19 pandemic has affected the health medicine and eight from ecology (Table S1). We selected journals
of over a hundred million people and caused a global financial crisis that were partially or fully open access with relatively high impact
perceivable already in 2020 (Mofijur et al., 2021). This year was also factors (between 2.34 and 36.13) that we assumed represented
atypical for scientific research and publication (Stokstad, 2020). publication trends in their fields. Being limited to open access
Among other activities, lockdowns have delayed or cancelled journals restricted the number of journals analysed, as often we
laboratory-based activities, as well as fieldwork, travel, workshops, needed to open the pdfs of the articles to obtain the dates when the
conferences and other large meetings (Corlett et al., 2020; Pennisi, manuscripts were received, reviewed and published. We manually
2020). With the collapse of public health systems around the world, accessed articles on the webpage of each journal and analysed 5790
many medical scientists focused all their efforts on combating the review and research articles published between the first issue of 2018
disease at the frontlines (Eisen et al., 2020). Primary carers (Myers up to articles early online on December 31, 2020. For journals with
et al., 2020) and early-career researchers (Ahmed et al., 2020) in less than 120 articles per year, we considered all qualifying articles.
particular found it more difficult to keep up with the workload For other journals, we randomly selected an equal number of articles
under these conditions. While female scientists have been reported within each issue to add up to 120 articles per year. Based on the
to be more negatively affected in general (Myers et al., 2020), as well title, we categorised whether the article was relevant to some aspects
as in the medical field (Viglione, 2020), the proportion of female of the COVID-19 pandemic. When the topic was not clear based on
authors who published in ecology journals did not decrease at the the title, we read the abstract of the article. Articles were considered
beginning of the pandemic (Fox and Meyer, 2021), potentially as the as related to COVID-19 when the words “COVID-19”, “SARS-
effects of the pandemic were not yet observable. COV2”, “pandemic” or “lockdown” were mentioned in the title or in
Not being able to conduct fieldwork or new laboratory the abstract in relation to the COVID-19 pandemic. From each
experiments, many scientists have focused on writing up and article, we obtained the Digital Object Identifier, the number of
2 HUMANITIES AND SOCIAL SCIENCES COMMUNICATIONS | (2021)8:234 | https://doi.org/10.1057/s41599-021-00920-9
HUMANITIES AND SOCIAL SCIENCES COMMUNICATIONS | https://doi.org/10.1057/s41599-021-00920-9 ARTICLE
Table 1 Results of the three fitted generalised linear mixed models with journals as random effect.
Models
Summary results Log(timelag) ~ year + Log(timelag_non_covid) ~ year + Log(timelag_rev) ~
(1 | journal) (1 | journal) covid + discipline + authors + pages + (1 | journal)
Number of articles 5787 5368 1363
REML criterion 8925.6 7138.8 2179.5
Intercept Estimate = 5.158; CI [5.011, Estimate = 5.123; CI [4.989, 5.255] Estimate = 3.882; CI [3.522, 4.226] t-value = 20.592;
5.305] t-value = 70.880; t-value = 77.618; p < 0.001 p < 0.001
p < 0.001
Fixed effect (2020) Estimate = −0.149; CI [−0.181, Estimate = 0.032; CI [0.024, Not applicable
−0.116] t-value = −9.001; 0.086] t-value = 3.479; p < 0.001
p < 0.001
Fixed effect (2019) Estimate = −0.011; CI [-0.044, Estimate = 0.014; CI [−0.016, Not applicable
0.023] t-value = −0.607; 0.044] t-value = 0.884; p = 0.376
p = 0.544
Fixed effect Not applicable Not applicable Estimate = −0.176; CI [−0.668, −0.462]
(COVID-19) t-value = −10.755; p < 0.001
Fixed effect Not applicable Not applicable Estimate = 0.013; CI [−0.628, 0.640] t-value = 0.039;
(Discipline) p = 0.9708
Fixed effect Not applicable Not applicable Estimate = 0.007; CI [0.0003, 0.0131] t-value = 2.091;
(Number of p < 0.05
authors)
Fixed effect Not applicable Not applicable Estimate = 0.006; CI [−0.001, 0.014] t-value = 1.457;
(Number of pages) p = 0.1453
CI = 95% confidence interval [lower, and higher limits].
authors, the name of the first and last authors (NA for last author if correlation between these additional fixed factors. In this GLMM
the publication had only one author), date of submission, date of we used the following equation: “lmer(log(timelag_review)
revision (if applicable), and the date the manuscript was accepted ~covid + area + authors + pages+(1|journal)”.
and published. Based on Julian dates, we calculated the number of For all GLMM models, we verified the normality of the
days between the date of submission and revision (i.e., the residues graphically using the qqnorm and qqline functions in R.
submission-to-revision time lag), between the date of submission After running the models, we checked the maximum residual
and acceptance (submission-to-acceptance time lag) and between likelihood values, the estimates for each fixed effect (effect size),
the date of submission and publication (submission-to-publication as well as their p-values individually, to explain the variation of
time lag). We used “NA” in our dataset to identify publications with the residuals. We also calculated the 95% confidence interval
missing data in any of these fields, which were excluded from data using 1000 bootstrap iterations as a validation for each estimate
analysis. As some journals have an earlier date for first published with the confint.merMod function of the lme4 package (Bates
online than the date of the printed issue (online-to-print publication et al., 2015). CIs also indicate the precision around the model
lag), we used the date of the article appearing first online when estimated parameter (Nakagawa and Innes, 2007).
calculating submission-to-publication time in order to standardise To test whether the productivity of female lead authors
sampling. We identified the gender of the authors searching publicly decreased during the pandemic, we compared the proportion of
available data on the internet based on the name and the institution genders of the first and last authors for 2019 and 2020. We treated
of the researcher (institution homepage, Research Gate, Google publications in ecology and medicine separately and carried out a
Scholar, LinkedIn, etc.) looking for pictures, pronouns and other Fisher’s exact test with 95% of confidence interval using the
information referring to the researcher. fisher.test function in R.
Finally, we correlated journal impact factor with the average
and standard deviation of the submission-to-publication time of
Data analysis. To test if the pandemic altered publication speed in the same journal through Pearson correlations using the
2020, we compared the submission-to-publication time lag (response functions cor, and cor.test in R.
variable) among volumes published in 2018, 2019 and 2020 through
a generalised linear mixed model (GLMM), with the journal as a
random factor and year as fixed factor (predictor variable) using the Results
equation: “log(timelag)~year+(1 | journal)”. We also ran the GLMM Analysing publications between January 1, 2018 and December
only for non-COVID-19 articles in order to detect the effect of 31, 2020, we found that the average submission-to-publication
pandemic on submission-to-publication time lag in the absence of time was shorter in 2020 than in 2018 and 2019 (n = 5787; model
COVID-19 articles. Since time lags are discrete data, we log- estimate for 2020 = –0.148 with 95% CI [–0.181, –0.116]; t-
transformed these values to achieve normal distribution. We used value = –9.001; p < 0.001; Table 1). Nine of the 16 analysed
the lmerTest (Kuznetsova et al., 2017) and lme4 (Bates et al., 2015) journals had shorter submission-to-publication time lags in 2020,
packages in R version 4.0.2 (R Core Development Team, 2020). and it took longer to publish in 2019 than in 2018 in eight
Given the pressures for a fast review, we also tested the effect of journals (Table 2). Five journals presented multimodal distribu-
the publication topic (COVID-19 or not) on submission-to- tion curves with regard to the submission-to-publication time lag
revision time (response variable). We applied a GLMM to the log- in 2020 (Fig. 1).
transformed response variable and we used journal as random Even though in general it was faster to publish in 2020, the
factor and discipline (ecology or medicine), number of authors submission-to-publication time lag was longer in 2020 for non-
and number of pages as fixed factors (predictors), as we found no COVID-19 articles than in the previous two years (n = 5368; model
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Table 2 Summary statistics (mean, standard deviation, and n) of time in days between submission and publication for 16 academic journals.
Journal Non-COVID19 COVID-19
2018 2019 2020 2020
ARTICLE
Mean ± SD n mean ± SD n Mean ± SD n Mean ± SD n All Notes
Ecology 198.3 ± 113.3 796 206.9 ± 109.1 773 212.4 ± 109.2 915 92.4 ± 34.2 17 206.7 ± 110.7 2594
BMC Ecology 237.6 ± 80.8 58 235.7 ± 107.5 49 235.6 ± 119.8 66 NA 0 236.3 ± 104.0 173
Cons. Letters 168.3 ± 70.1 73 186.2 ± 81.1 63 189.8 ± 93.4 68 144.0 1 185.0 ± 81.9 272 66*
Ecol&Evol 214.2 ± 126.4 114 180.5 ± 103.9 120 181.6 ± 96.9 205 88.4 ± 37.6 12 185.8 ± 107.1 463 12
Ecosphere 131.0 ± 85.4 148 151.1 ± 93.4 120 209.1 ± 117.2 144 91.0 1 164.0 ± 105.1 413
Front. 147.4 ± 87.9 119 160.3 ± 63.2 120 178.4 ± 76.1 99 NA 0 161.1 ± 77.2 338
Ecol. Evol.
Landscape 236.6 ± 99.5 138 265.1 ± 116.3 171 231.8 ± 116.9 191 NA 0 245.6 ± 114.7 519 19
Ecology
Nat. Ecol. Evol. 285.3 ± 132.6 113 263.1 ± 107.7 106 274.6 ± 111.8 107 98.0 1 275.3 ± 119.6 334 6^
PECON 167.2 ± 61.1 33 182.8 ± 93.5 24 214.6 ± 79.9 36 89.0 ± 17.0 2 186.7 ± 79.0 99 4
Medicine 176.6 ± 103.7 1010 176.6 ± 94.3 888 188.4 ± 94.3 746 85.0 ± 52.7 401 166.4 ± 99.3 3179 133
BMC Medicine 187.3 ± 66.9 119 166.7 ± 55.1 118 168.0 ± 53.6 199 109.6 ± 41.0 39 167.7 ± 59.8 475
BMJ Open 212.9 ± 79.7 120 241.5 ± 81.8 120 234.1 ± 96.7 120 134.1 ± 40.6 135 203.5 ± 88.1 495
Clin. 121.9 ± 55.2 285 129.9 ± 49.3 168 134.2 ± 65.3 46 39.4 ± 20.5 163 106.4 ± 59.5 773 111
Infect. Dis.
eLife - 157.0 ± 81.4 133 144.6 ± 53.9 128 162.3 ± 75.1 46 67.0 ± 31.7 24 146.4 ± 71.8 331
Medicine
J. Biomed. Sci. 126.7 ± 38.5 88 117.6 ± 50.3 91 155.8 ± 94.4 97 54.3 ± 9.5 3 133.1 ± 68.6 279
J. Clin. 162.2 ± 95.5 49 173.8 ± 107.1 79 141.2 ± 76.5 87 100.1 ± 27.3 8 158.5 ± 93.5 239 15
Immunol.
Nature 338.5 ± 176.9 97 320.4 ± 177.0 63 282.8 ± 138.0 69 69.5 ± 25.4 13 306.4 ± 177.2 249 7
Medicine
PLos Medicine 192.7 ± 56.3 119 192.1 ± 43.9 121 225.5 ± 62.4 82 113.8 ± 18.0 16 196.7 ± 57.3 338
Grand total 186.1 ± 108.5 1806 190.7 ± 102.5 1661 201.6 ± 103.4 1661 86.3 ± 55.5 419 184.1 ± 106.5 5790
Number of articles published in 2018 with a publication date of 2017 (not included in the calculations of this table). One additional article published with publication a date of 2016 (marked with*) and one article published in 2020 with a date of 2021 (marked with ^).
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HUMANITIES AND SOCIAL SCIENCES COMMUNICATIONS | https://doi.org/10.1057/s41599-021-00920-9
HUMANITIES AND SOCIAL SCIENCES COMMUNICATIONS | https://doi.org/10.1057/s41599-021-00920-9 ARTICLE Fig. 1 Density curves of submission-to-publication time in 2018–2020 for 16 academic journals. Ecology journals are on the left, medical journals on the right. Colours represent the probability distribution. estimate for 2020 = 0.032 with 95% CI [0.024, 0.086]; t- male–female lead combination decreased in 2020 (Fig. 4). The value = 3.479; P < 0.001; Table 1). This increasing trend in 2020 was most frequent author combination for both ecology and medical driven by exceptionally long publication delays (i.e., up to 912 days). journals was male–male, while for medical journals male–female Non-COVID-19 articles took longer to publish in 2020 than in 2019 was the least frequent first–last author combination for all 3 years. in 11 journals (69% of the analysed journals; Table 2). In ecology, in 2020 the least frequent combination was The topic “COVID-19” decreased the length of the reviewing male–female, while in earlier years, female–female combination process (n = 1363; model estimate = –0.176 with 95% CI [–0.668, was the least common. Among the 419 COVID-19 articles –0.462]; t-value = –10.755; P < 0.001; Table 1). We back- (ecology and medical journals together), 26.4% had female first transformed the estimates for easier interpretation and found author and male last author, 21.2% had male first author and that it takes on average 31 days less (CI [–39, –23]) to publish an female last author, and only 14.2% had both leads female. article about COVID-19 compared to other topics. Interestingly, Among medical journals, Clinical Infectious Diseases had the all COVID-19 articles were published faster than the journals’ fastest submission-to-publication time (106.3 ± 59.4 days) and Nat- average (Fig. 2). The model detected that the number of authors ure Medicine had the slowest (306.4 ± 177.2 days). Among ecology slightly increased the submission-to-revision time lag (n = 1363; journals, Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution was the fastest model estimate = 0.007 with 95% CI [0.0003, 0.0131]; (161 ± 77.1 days) and Nature Ecology and Evolution the slowest t-value = 2.091; P < 0.001), while the discipline and the number of (275.3 ± 119.5 days). While there were more COVID-19 articles pages had no effect. Articles published in 2018 and 2019 had an published in medicine than in ecology (402 and 17, respectively), not average submission-to-revision time of 150 ± 90 (n = 1898) and all medical journals had faster submission-to-publication times 169 ± 112 (n = 1569) days for medicine and ecology, respectively. compared to ecology journals (Fig. 5). We found positive correla- COVID-19 articles had 72 ± 46 (n = 402) and 55 ± 31 (n = 17) tions between a journal’s impact factor and the average (n = 16; days for the reviewing process for medicine and ecology, r = 0.563; P < 0.05) and standard deviation (n = 16; r = 0.633; respectively. In fact, one COVID-19 article was accepted within a P < 0.01) of their submission-to-publication time. day and another 15 articles within a week of submission to medical journals. For ecology journals, the fastest acceptance of a Discussion COVID-19 article was nine days. In 2020, a new factor, the topic of COVID-19 appeared, which Even though COVID-19 was a topic relevant enough to be had a large effect on the submission-to-publication time of published in ecology journals, we only found 17 publications in this journals (Horbach, 2020). The pandemic did not only cause the period in the sampled ecology journals. This, in fact is a major “covidisation” of scientific publication (Pai, 2020), but also limitation of our dataset based on the small contribution of samples affected publication speed in an unbalanced way in both ecology coming from ecology journals and also because of the high varia- and medicine. We suspect that the multimodal distribution of the bility (66%) among observations of the submission-to-revision submission-to-publication times in 2020 that were observed in time lag. five journals, was an artefact of the faster processing time of We also tested if the pandemic affected the ratio of female and COVID-19 articles, while manuscripts on other topics took male lead authors during 2020. In general, the ratio of publica- longer. These results were already detectable in April 2020 among tions with male and female leads (both first and last authors) in medical journals (Horbach, 2020), indicating the prioritisation of 2020 was similar to that in 2019 in both ecology and medicine COVID-19 manuscripts by editors. According to our results, (Table S2, Fig. 3). The number of publications of different some articles were published within a few days after submission, first–last author gender combinations remained similar between demonstrating the fast-tracking of articles relevant to this public the years in medical journals. For ecology, the number of articles health emergency. Other studies reported COVID-19 articles with the female–female lead combination increased and accepted in a median time of under seven days (Kun, 2020; HUMANITIES AND SOCIAL SCIENCES COMMUNICATIONS | (2021)8:234 | https://doi.org/10.1057/s41599-021-00920-9 5
ARTICLE HUMANITIES AND SOCIAL SCIENCES COMMUNICATIONS | https://doi.org/10.1057/s41599-021-00920-9 Fig. 2 Distribution of submission-to-publication time in 2018–2020 for 16 academic journals. Ecology journals are on the left and medical journals on the right. Light blue dots represent COVID-19 publications and red lines show the trend based on a non-linear regression model. Fig. 3 The proportion of publications among lead (first and last) authors of different genders in ecology and medical journals in 2018–2020. a First authors in ecology, b first authors in medicine, c last authors in ecology, and d last authors in medicine. Blue shading represents male, green represents female and light green are authors of unidentified gender. The one (self-identified) transgender last author in ecology in 2018 is shown in dark blue. Palayew et al., 2020), which is usually characteristic of predatory publishing COVID-19 articles is understandable, many other topics, journals (Beall, 2012). This astonishing speed of manuscript such as publications that offer solutions to the biodiversity crisis management by journals that usually take months to publish (Kareiva et al., 2002) and urgent issues with regard to public health articles have raised questions about the quality of the reviewing and economy (Björk and Solomon, 2013) also need and deserve process (Palayew et al., 2020; Benjamens et al., 2021). In fact, faster editorial services. Articles are often published on preprint there have been a higher number of retractions with regard to the servers, but the reliability of the information on these platforms has COVID-19 literature (da Silva et al., 2021) and some authors also been questioned (Kaiser, 2017). The mechanisms affecting the advocate that increasing journals efficiency to reduce publication length of the review process are known to be idiosyncratic and often delays would facilitate the publication of lower-quality research include the low responsiveness of reviewers and editors (Huisman (Tiokhin et al., 2021). However, while many submitting authors and Smits, 2017). Surprisingly, in 2020, reviewers of ecology journals understand that high-quality peer-review takes time, we know replied to invitations to review and returned their reviews more that if manuscripts reach the right reviewers in a timely manner rapidly than previously (Fox and Meyer, 2021), which contrast with and are prioritised by them, in extreme cases they can be reviewed our results for non-COVID-19 articles. The results by Fox and in a couple of days. Realistically, manuscripts can spend weeks (or Meyer (2021) need to be interpreted with caution, as they are based months) in the drawer of an editor or a reviewer (Ware and on data of only the first five months of the pandemic. An alternative Mabe, 2015), often because of competing priorities. explanation can be that the cancellation of fieldwork and the The fast speed of publishing articles about COVID-19 has proven interruption of teaching tasks made reviewers more available to that journals are able to process articles rapidly even under the review for these journals. We also found that the more authors a unusual working conditions of the lockdown. While the urgency of manuscript had, the more time the review process took, possibly as 6 HUMANITIES AND SOCIAL SCIENCES COMMUNICATIONS | (2021)8:234 | https://doi.org/10.1057/s41599-021-00920-9
HUMANITIES AND SOCIAL SCIENCES COMMUNICATIONS | https://doi.org/10.1057/s41599-021-00920-9 ARTICLE Fig. 4 Absolute number of publications among different first–last author combinations in ecology and medical journals in 2018–2020. Transgender authors and those of unidentified gender are not shown. such manuscripts take longer to be checked by all authors before as lead authors than males (de Kleijn et al., 2020; Eigenberg and resubmission. Submission-to-publication time may also depend on Whalley, 2015; de Camargo and Hayashi, 2017). Furthermore, arti- journal performance and features, such as being open access or early cles written by female leads seem to receive fewer citations, possibly online availability (Björk and Solomon, 2013; Sebo et al., 2019). as a result of fewer international collaborations compared to male Coincidentally, the three slowest journals in our study are considered scientists (Larivière et al., 2013). A study analysing publications “hybrid open access” (European Union, 2021). To our surprise, between January 1 and June 5, 2020, found that the number of publication time was positively correlated with the journals’ impact articles with female first authors was 19% lower for COVID-19 factor, partially contradicting an earlier study (Huisman and Smits, articles compared to articles published in the same medical journals 2017), which found highly ranked journals having faster submission- in 2019 (Andersen et al., 2020; Viglione, 2020). Domestic and other to-revision times among accepted articles. tasks, particularly for female scientists who are often primary carers, Regardless of the journal, the pandemic likely hampered the have diminished the time available for the production of articles, progress of female main authors in 2020, maintaining the existing potentially exacerbating the gender gap among main authors in 2020 gender bias (Santos et al., 2019; Filardo et al., 2016). This result is (Collins et al., 2021; Squazzoni et al., 2020; Cui et al., 2021). Deter- similar to the findings of a previous analysis of six ecology journals mining the reasons for this gender gap in academic productivity in until October, 2020 (Fox and Meyer, 2021). The magnitude of gender science continues to be a complex task (Larivière et al., 2013). bias varies among areas of study and countries (Salerno et al., 2020; Although peer review and editorial processes in general do not seem de Kleijn et al., 2020). Female are often proportionally less common to influence decisions for manuscripts written by female authors HUMANITIES AND SOCIAL SCIENCES COMMUNICATIONS | (2021)8:234 | https://doi.org/10.1057/s41599-021-00920-9 7
ARTICLE HUMANITIES AND SOCIAL SCIENCES COMMUNICATIONS | https://doi.org/10.1057/s41599-021-00920-9
Fig. 5 Average submission-to-publication time lag among 16 academic journals in order of increasing mean values from left to right. Ecology journals
are indicated by light blue and medical journals by dark blue.
(Squazzoni et al., 2021), the academic community needs to find ways priority over other important topics with public health relevance.
to equalise this gender inequality. Actions could be taken for a higher The possible uniformisation of science may somewhat threaten
gender diversity among editors of high-impact journals and to pro- the resolution of other crises dependent on scientific data (Pai,
vide better support to female scientists, including allowing more time 2020). We also suggest additional actions to reduce the gender
for article resubmission. Younger female scientists should be invited gap in productivity, which has been further exacerbated by the
more often to review manuscripts, giving them an opportunity to pandemic, in order to provide more equal scientific production.
improve their writing skills (Lerback and Hanson, 2017). Also, as a Finally, similar to articles on COVID-19, decreasing the
systematic solution, female faculty could receive more teaching submission-to-publication time lag for all articles can reduce the
support or full relief from teaching duties, better support for child- frustration of the submitting authors, minimise the damage to
care, and adjusted assessment criteria for candidates for research their career by not submitting them to unnecessary delays, and
funding and tenured positions (Andersen et al., 2020). also disseminate knowledge faster on urgent matters.
For future work, it would be interesting to look at a more nuanced
analysis using questionnaires with regard to regional, socioeconomic Data and materials availability
and temporal patterns with regard to research and publication pro- Data can be accessed at https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.4446285.
ductivity of authors, reviewers and editors. Journals could also
facilitate the analysis of publication data by making metadata more Received: 9 February 2021; Accepted: 4 October 2021;
accessible for instance, via API. As we have collected data manually
from each article, we might have inadvertently introduced errors, but
we believe these to be non-directional. Similarly, the three authors
made a one-by-one decision for each article with regard to dealing
with COVID-19, discussing the few non-obvious cases, which
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